Maurice Prendergast's joyous, light-filled canvases have made him one of America's best-loved painters. His unique perception endowed his sensuous experiments in pattern and textures, in atmosphere and light with a stature achieved by few artists. Working in the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first several decades of the twentieth, he perfected his distinctive style, becoming one of the great colorists of all time.

This major reappraisal contributes a wealth of new scholarship. Based on letters, sketchbooks, contemporary articles and reviews, it also brings to life an exciting and pivotal era, for Prendergast was in the forefront of modern painting in America. He exhibited as one of The Eight, becoming known as one of the "Red Hots," and participated in the Armory Show.

His experiences, including living and working in Europe, allowed him to draw on a wide variety of sources - including Cezanne, Signac, the Renaissance Italian painter, and Watteau. Out of these he created his own truly unique idiom.